


Blood and Cold Steel Taste Nearly the Same, Don't They?

by dromayr



Category: The Walking Dead (Video Game)
Genre: Acceptance, Clementine is a hurt child, Death Idealization, Depression, Gen, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 19:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6533083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dromayr/pseuds/dromayr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clementine thinks on her situation in life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Cold Steel Taste Nearly the Same, Don't They?

Humanity has become a not-so well-known commodity in the world.

Clementine knows this, for she's trapped in this climate.

She has been for too long, really. She’s eleven now, or maybe 12? She is unsure, she’s been too busy surviving to count the days she’s lived. She knows that Christa and Omid celebrated her tenth birthday with a can of peaches and a box of old, stale snack cakes. They were quite a ways past their expiration date, but were a pleasant change. And she also knows it’s been more than a year since Omid was alive, so, she rationalizes she must be at least 11.

She’s been living alone, she feels, for longer.

Ever since Lee died (she still expects him to show up one night and console her after surfacing from a nightmare, though she knows his body is decaying, rotting away cuffed to a radiator instead of in a grave because she was young, had nowhere to bury him, nowhere to give him peace), she has felt cold, detached, depressed. It was practically a chore for Christa and Omid to coax her to eat, when they were around. But after Omid died? Clementine practically forgot what food was.

She would only eat when she became sluggish; when her stomach itself felt like it would turn into a member of the undead through sheer desperation. She would only eat on the nights where Christa gave her those same, sad eyes that Clementine had been looking through since the apocalypse started, telling her through gaze _I don’t want to eat, either, but it’s better than dying._

On the nights when she had nightmares, where she saw her parents (and on her worst nights, Lee) die, turn, and attack her; where she watched her flesh torn from her bones by the ones she loved and lost only to wake up in a pale sweat, far too aware of her blackbird heart frantically beating against her frail, cage-like chest, she stared at the sky. She sought no solace, no comfort, because she gave none to Christa. She gave no comfort when the baby died in Clem’s arms because she's still just a lost little kid, and doesn’t know how to deliver a baby, oh God! - And was unable to give comfort after Omid was killed with Clementine’s gun, because she turned her back and dropped her guard, as he drained of life in Christa’s arms whilst she sobbed. Christa never offered it, either, though. She either, through blindness, never knew of Clementine’s silent suffering, or was just too angry with her to help.

Either way, Clem woke up feeling like she was suffocating. She felt as though she deserved it.

But when she tried to help, tried to talk to Christa for the first time in more than a year, she was shut down.

Christa leaves to get firewood, and by doing so leaves to let Clementine stew in her own thoughts. The crushing regret, the final admission of guilt, and the hollowness no child should face. Clem focuses, instead, on stoking the fire until a noise gathers her curiosity.

They did say that curiosity killed the cat.

Of course, it’s bandits. Always with the fucking bandits. The goddamn no-good life-ending bandits.

And they have Christa.

Even with the year-long cold-shoulder, the dead eyes, and the blame of Omid’s death, Clem tries to give Christa a fighting chance, throws a stone, and it feels like it’s going a mile before it hits one of them, but it’s pointless. There’s more than enough of them to chase Clem and take Christa. God, she feels stupid, so fucking stupid.

And later, she can't help but wonder when it last was that she’s clung to a human being tightly. When she could feel their ragged heart beating frantically in their chest as if to say _I missed you._ When is the last time she’s felt such a heartache, such a sad happiness, such a crushing wave of surprise and been able to anchor herself in someone’s arms?

Too long, she thinks. Far too fucking long. She thinks of this between the adrenaline bursts as she soars down the river, current dragging her body as easily as if she were dead. But she's made peace with this, feels as though she is undeserving of comfort as she is brought to unconsciousness and carted off by nature.

When she awakes, it feels as though whatever force may be out there has cursed her to carry on. Her entire body burns and aches, and her lungs are heavy as she vomits up cold water. This must be repentance for her (imagined) sins, she assumes, and so she carries on. 

She meets and ends a dog, another tally mark on her mental wall of bad things she's done, and she once more is ready to resign herself to her fate.

And oh, what luck when Luke finds her. Walker bite, dog bite, infected bite? Does it matter? Clementine only knows she feels weak from blood loss and the first courses of infection. And so, she once more slips into the ether. Thankfully, it's the only time she feels and hears no torment.

She does think later, when she awakens to a gun, that she would rather not die at the hands of another survivor, would rather not weigh on the conscience of her killer as a dead child, and so she asks only for the barest of supplies. Funnily enough, they would rather kill her out of fear than let her die in the wild. 

Did this group think of their decision as an act of mercy? Of kindness? Likely so, but still an incorrect line of thought. Mercy would have been allowing Clementine to decide for her damned self, just this once, how she wanted to die.

But this would not be allowed. Clementine had to live for reasons yet unknown.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Revised on 9/15 for grammar and proofreading, more than one year after publishing.]


End file.
